|
FEATURE ARTICLE, MAY 2004
The Changing Role of Property Management
Fidelity Information Corporation is helping to transform
the way property managers do business.
Dawn Pick Benson
Traditionally, property management has meant collecting rent
checks and focusing on brick-and-mortar issues such as building
maintenance. Today, however, property managers not only handle
these matters, but they also must consider tenant relations,
what to do about collecting rent from a tenant who doesn’t
pay, and how to ensure that those who live in their communities
are safe.
 |
|
Cronrod
|
|
“There has been a revolutionary change in property management
over the last few years,” says Jeff Cronrod, CEO and
founder of Pacific Palisades, California-based Fidelity Information
Corporation (FIC). He says the economy, as well as the terrorist
activity in the U.S. and around the world, has caused property
managers to become more cognizant of tenant relations. “Consequently,
sophisticated owners and management companies are spending
more time and money screening their tenants, doing criminal
background checks, and looking more carefully at fraud,”
says Cronrod.
The current challenge for managers is not only to put good
procedures in place to deal with these issues, but also to
avoid getting bogged down in all the paperwork involved in
executing these new processes.
In response, FIC has developed an Internet-based service to
expedite many of these processes. The company has pioneered
new strategies for debt collection and tenant management that
save money and help automate many processes. FIC does this
through its own one-of-a-kind tenant management suite that
can be accessed from a single Web site, www.AGoodTenant.com.
The suite includes online background screening (TenantAlert),
rent invoicing for landlords (TenantMail) and delinquent rent
recovery (Rent Recovery Service). Cronrod says this system
covers all stages of the tenant lifecycle.
TenantAlert
(www.TenantAlert.com)
Apartment owners can expedite and improve the tenant screening
process with TenantAlert, an Internet-based tenant screening
service that instantly evaluates prospective renters based
on a colorblind scoring system called MatchMaker. With this
system, property managers no longer have to go through the
laborious process of manually screening tenants or worrying
about charges of discrimination. MatchMaker allows landlords
to establish a preferred tenant profile based on more than
30 different parameters. The system evaluates each applicant
according to those criteria and returns a “recommend”
or “not recommend.”
“From the first time a prospective tenant walks in,”
says Cronrod, “a property manager can get a background
report on that person that includes fraud verification as
well as credit, eviction and criminal history.” TenantAlert
checks applicants against the company’s nationwide eviction
database, which is the largest in the industry. In addition,
the service offers a terrorist database check through the
Department of Treasury and a sex offender background check.
Cronrod says the system is scalable so that both small and
large tenant managers can easily use the system.
The TenantAlert screening system has been well received by
property managers. Cronrod says that the company has clients
such as Donald Trump and City Habitats in New York.
TenantMail
(www.TenantMail.com)
TenantMail is the first fully automated tenant invoicing service.
It allows apartment owners and management companies to register
and input their rent rolls online for free. “This is
a unique system,” says Cronrod. “There’s nothing
like it anywhere on the Internet for landlords.” He says
this service will automatically print and mail invoices to
tenants each month with a return envelope and tear-off payment
stub. Custom messages or reminders to tenants can be added
on the monthly invoices for free. Registered users can access
their accounts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and can make
changes in tenancy, rent or dates at no charge.
An added advantage to TenantMail is that those who are already
using TenantAlert for their screening process can add new
tenants to TenantMail with just a few mouse clicks. In association
with Rent Recovery Service, managers can also instantly forward
a delinquent tenant to Experian, TransUnion, Equifax and the
Delinquent Tenant Cooperative. Cronrod says that TenantMail
plans to introduce a few new services in the coming months,
including late notices and surveys.
Rent Recovery Service
(www.ABadTenant.com)
In addition to tenant screening and invoicing, FIC’s
tenant management suite offers a delinquent rent collection
service. Rent Recovery Service (RRS) is a division of FIC
and represents 8,000 management companies and landlords nationwide,
making it the largest landlord collection agency in the country.
Cronrod says that if a tenant doesn’t pay the rent, a
simple mouse click will roll the information from TenantMail
into RRS, which offers two levels of collection services.
The first level is a flat fee program, which sends tenants
a collection letter for $16.95 or a series of letters for
$26.95. It also reports the delinquent tenant to credit bureaus.
There is no commission or contingency fee involved in this
process, which lowers the cost of pursuing delinquent tenants.
“The second level is our contingency-based service,”
says Cronrod, “through which we will go after the delinquent
tenant more aggressively.” The contingency service places
debtors with eviction judgments on a 24-hour electronic surveillance
system designed to locate and confiscate assets, sometimes
years after an eviction. It also automatically notifies the
three major credit bureaus and the Delinquent Tenant Cooperative
of delinquencies reported to the service for no charge. Cronrod
says that RRS represents companies such as Trammell Crow Company
and Lincoln Properties in Florida.
| GIVING AMENITIES,
SERVICES A SECOND THOUGHT
With the emergence of a more educated and sophisticated
prospective resident pool, as well as recent low interest
rates that entice residents to buy instead of rent, many
property managers are rethinking the way they do business.
 |
|
Smith
|
|
“Before, we looked at our role as more of a business,”
says Angela Smith, senior vice president of Atlanta-based
Lane Management Corporation, which manages 30,000 units
in 12 states. “We focused on keeping expenses down
and increasing revenues. Today, we still have to consider
these issues, but there is also a need to cater more
to our residents.” Lane is doing this by concentrating
more on service, resident retention and resident management,
according to Dan Haefner, senior vice president and
CIO of Lane Company.
“We offer our residents a job transfer and home purchase
clause,” says Smith. This allows residents who sign
a 12-month lease to pay an extra $500 so that if they
do move or purchase a home, they can simply give a 30-day
notice without paying termination fees. If a tenant opts
for this clause, but does not end up moving during their
lease term, they forfeit the deposit.
 |
|
Haefner
|
|
The company has also begun to offer more amenities
at its new properties, including luxuries tenants would
not be able to enjoy in single-family homes. For example,
Summer Villa Apartments in Atlanta just opened an on-site
coffee shop with cyber-café, a full-service day
spa and a five-star restaurant on site. The Park District
Apartments at Atlantic Station in Atlanta will have
a full-scale health club with a professional staff.
“We’re offering residents more amenities so
they will not want to leave the catered environment,”
says Smith.
Residents at 13 Lane properties in Georgia can now get
fresh, healthy food delivered to them through Chicago-based
Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating (SSHE). SSHE provides
residents with low-fat meals starting at $100 a week (for
21 meals). The meals are freshly made in Atlanta, and
they are available for pick-up or delivery twice a week.
According to Smith, Atlanta is the first market where
SSHE offers this service, and so far it has been very
well received.
Lane also caters to its residents through monthly car
washes, after-school programs for kids, and pet sitting
and plant care services. Smith says the company has also
created a new position, called a Resident Service Specialist,
on many of its properties. This person does nothing but
focus on residents and cater to their service requests,
including making personal phone calls on residents’
birthdays.
Lane is also taking an aggressive technological approach
in the management of its properties and the creation of
value for owners. To that extent, Lane has formed a partnership
with software provider Real Page Inc. Utilizing Real Page
software, the company offers real-time, around-the-clock
online access to leasing a unit, putting in a service
request or sending communications to the site staff. Lane
is also developing a portal system that allows residents
to order utilities, phone, cable and newspaper services
via the Internet.
Another use of technology is the company’s development
of a mobile work-order system, which allows service technicians
to receive work orders on wireless personal digital assistants,
or PDAs, which are connected to a wireless network. The
system automatically translates English work orders into
Spanish, and vice versa, which eliminates the language
barrier. “The PDAs allow service technicians to be
more efficient in that they do not have to go back to
the office to receive work orders,” says Haefner.
“Instead, they can now stay out on the property 100
percent of the time.” Haefner says this system also
allows managers to quantitatively evaluate the performance
of their technicians and pinpoint training needs or performance
issues.
— Dawn Pick Benson
|
©2004 France Publications, Inc. Duplication
or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization
from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints
of this article contact Barbara
Sherer at (630) 554-6054.
|
